Politics

Israel Threatens Military Intervention In Damascus As Internal Fighting Engulfs Suburb

Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar has made some interesting new comments on the Syria situation over the weekend, at a moment the Israeli military (IDF) is occupying whole swathes of the country’s south in the wake of the December 8th ouster of Bashar al-Assad.

Sa’ar described Syria’s new government which is led by self-declared president Ahmed al-Sharaa (Jolani) as “a bunch of jihadists” who were “not elected… by the Syrian people.”
Jaramana, a city outside Damascus, via Syria Times.

The Israeli top diplomat stressed at a press conference in Jerusalem that “it is important that the new rulers of Damascus respect the rights of minorities,” and highlighted that “we also have a Druze community here in Israel.”

We should note that the irony is of course that Israel had supported the Islamist anti-Assad insurgency from the start of the war, including al-Qaeda elements – as even one CIA official at the time admitted.

The remarks came after fighting has engulfed the Damascus suburban city of Jaramana. Militants from Jolani’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) are clashing with Druze militants, in an effort to disarm all other factions except the Jolani regime’s HTS fighters. Syrian Christians also have a heavy presence in Jaramana.

The Druze are an ethno-religious minority offshoot of Islam considered heretical by Sunnis. Their communities are present in Syria, Lebanon, the Golan Heights region, and some areas of Israel/Palestine. In Syria, they are mostly in the south, and tend to live in intermixed villages with Christians of the ancient Hauran region.

Importantly, Israel might use the internal Syrian fighting to launch a further military intervention and landgrab, after reports have indicated the IDF already has units positioned just 20 to 25km south of Damascus:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz instructed the Israel Defense Forces on Saturday to “prepare to defend” the Druze-majority city of Jaramana on the outskirts of Damascus in Syria.

A statement issued by Katz’s office said the Damascus suburb of Jaramana was “currently under attack by the forces of the Syrian regime.”

Some regional reports say the current fighting happened when an HTS militant entered Jaramana and began firing in the air, after which he was killed by local armed Druze factions. Many areas of Syria have seen local residents refuse to give up their arms and form local patrols, not trusting the governance of HTS.

At least one HTS fighter has been killed, and possibly more wounded in the fresh internal fighting…

- Druze-led As Suwaida Military Council reinforcements arrive in Jaramana, south of Damascus, Syria. https://t.co/Y6LSfd8srb pic.twitter.com/3W1bzpAdd5
— Rerum Novarum // Intel, Breaking News, and Alerts (@officialrnintel) March 1, 2025
As for Israel’s Katz, he claimed, “We will not allow the extreme Islamic regime in Syria to harm the Druze. If the regime harms the Druze, it will be struck by us.” He added: “We are committed to our Druze brothers in Israel to do everything to prevent harm to their Druze brothers in Syria, and we will take all the steps required to maintain their…

Armed Venezuelan Ship “Threatens” Exxon Mobile Vessel Off Guyana Coast

A Venezuelan military ship entered a major offshore oil and gas field off the coast of Guyana early Saturday, approaching an ExxonMobil contracted vessel, according to Bloomberg. This incident comes days after President Trump canceled a key oil deal with Nicolas Maduro’s Venezuela, citing its failure to repatriate an adequate number of illegal aliens from the US.

X user News Source Guyana posted a video showing the armed Venezuelan patrol boat probing the waters around the Exxon contracted ship in the Stabroek Block (Oil & Gas Field). 

News Source: Authorities in Guyana at the Government level and at the level of Exxon Mobil are probing the presence of a Venezuelan Military vessel in Guyana’s waters sailing close to drill ships and other vessels in the Stabroek Block where oil production is taking place. pic.twitter.com/9YsmfWft8X
— News Source Guyana (@newssourcegy) March 1, 2025
The US State Department wrote on X the incident was unacceptable:

“Venezuelan naval vessels threatening ExxonMobil’s floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) unit is unacceptable and a clear violation of Guyana’s internationally-recognized maritime territory. Further provocation will result in consequences for the Maduro regime. The United States reaffirms its support for Guyana’s territorial integrity and the 1899 arbitral award.”

Venezuelan naval vessels threatening ExxonMobil’s floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) unit is unacceptable and a clear violation of Guyana’s internationally-recognized maritime territory. Further provocation will result in consequences for the Maduro regime. The…
— Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs (@WHAAsstSecty) March 1, 2025
Another video of the incident.

Video donde observamos al ABV “Guaiquerí” de la Armada Bolivariana de Venezuela frente a un Buque de perforación petrolera. Posiblemente sea en el Campo “Payara” del bloque “Stabroek” en aguas por delimitar entre Guyana y Venezuela #1Mar #Mimapa https://t.co/8ymmJO0WX9 pic.twitter.com/MdkrOCNNGe
— Mi Mapa de Venezuela incluye nuestro Esequibo (@AntroCanal) March 1, 2025
Exxon discovered Stabroek in 2015. It produces 650,000 barrels daily and is situated in heavily disputed waters with Venezuela.  

Guyana’s President, Irfaan Ali, stated that the Venezuelan military vessel radioed the Exxon-contracted ship, declaring that the area lies within disputed international waters.

“During this incursion, the Venezuelan vessel approached various assets in our exclusive waters, including FPSO Prosperity,” Ali said, referring to one of the Exxon-contracted vessels.

The Organization of American States stated, “Such acts of intimidation constitute a clear violation of international law, undermine regional stability, and threaten the principles of peaceful coexistence between nations,” adding it “unequivocally condemns the recent actions of Venezuelan naval vessels.”

The incident follows Trump’s decision to reverse the concessions of an oil transaction agreement dated Nov. 26, 2022, with Venezuela, citing Maduro’s failure to repatriate enough migrants.

We are hereby reversing the concessions that Crooked Joe Biden gave to Nicolás Maduro, of Venezuela, on the oil transaction agreement, dated November 26, 2022, and also having to do with Electoral conditions within Venezuela, which have not been met by the Maduro regime.…
— Donald J. Trump Posts From His Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) February 26, 2025
Not a smart move, Maduro. 

Tyler Durden
Sun, 03/02/2025 – 07:35…

Trump, Vance, & The New New World Order

Authored by Stephen Soukup via American Greatness,

This past week, the venerable Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator for The Financial Times, used his column to declare the Trump administration and, by extension, the United States “the enemy of the West.” “Today,” Wolf wrote, “autocracies [are] increasingly confident,” and “the United States is moving to their side.” According to the subhead on the column, “Washington has decided to abandon…its postwar role in the world.” Meanwhile, Wolf cites the (in his estimation) august Franklin Roosevelt, as he complains that the United States “has decided instead to become just another great power, indifferent to anything but its short-term interests.”

The ironies here—as well as the historical ignorance—abound.

To start, one would imagine that Wolf, an educated man with two degrees from Oxford, might know that it was his countryman (and two-time Prime Minister), Henry John Temple (i.e. Lord Palmerston), who declared in a speech in the House of Commons that “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.” Wolf might also be expected to know that this statement was repeated—more famously and more pithily—by Henry Kissinger, perhaps the quintessential American diplomat in the supposedly vaunted postwar order. Kissinger, like Palmerston and Trump (apparently) understood that a nation that pursues anything other than its interests is foolish, faithless, and, in time, doomed.

What bothers Wolf, it would seem, is that American interests are diverging from British and continental European interests. That is unfortunate, but it is also more than likely the case that this divergence is the result of Britain and Europe’s abandonment of the principles, values, and ambitions the allies once shared, rather than the other way around. For example, Wolf criticizes the speech given by J.D. Vance in which the vice president defended the traditional American dedication to free speech and attacked the British and European rejection of that principle. Yet again, Wolf might be expected to know that the American preoccupation with this and all other negative rights is something the nation’s Founders inherited from their British forefathers. If the two nations now differ on the importance of this fundamental right, then that’s hardly Vance’s, Trump’s, or any other American’s fault.

More ironies are found in Wolf’s praise of the now-dying postwar order and his citation of FDR as the architect of that order. While Wolf is correct that Roosevelt was one of two Americans most responsible for the creation of the postwar order, he is wrong in believing that the order was virtuous by design and that it played out precisely as Roosevelt intended. Indeed, he couldn’t be more wrong if he tried.

Almost from the moment the United States entered World War II, Roosevelt was planning how best to achieve the goal he inherited from his former boss and Progressive predecessor, Woodrow Wilson. Wilson’s goal, of course, was “global governance” under the League of Nations, a goal that the U.S. Senate,…

FBI Returns 33 Boxes Of Trump Property Seized During Mar-a-Lago Raid

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump said on Friday that the Justice Department (DOJ) has returned to him boxes of documents seized by the FBI from his Mar-a-Lago home during an investigation in 2022.

Trump stated that the DOJ has “just returned the boxes that Deranged Jack Smith made such a big deal about,” referring to the former special counsel who led the investigations into Trump’s alleged retention of classified documents from his first presidential term and his attempts to overturn the 2020 election results.

“They are being brought down to Florida and will someday be part of the Trump Presidential Library. Justice finally won out,” Trump stated on his Truth Social platform.

Trump reiterated his stance that the FBI investigation against him was politically motivated.

“I did absolutely nothing wrong. This was merely an attack on a political opponent that, obviously, did not work well. Justice in our Country will now be restored,” the president stated.

Alina Habba, the president’s counselor, said that she personally loaded some of the “infamous boxes” onto Air Force One before Trump’s flight back to Florida on Friday.

“Justice has been and will continue to be restored in this country under President Trump. Truth and justice always win in the end. God Bless America,” Habba stated on the social media platform X.

In August 2022, the FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, as part of an investigation into his alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving office during his first term in 2021.

During the raid, FBI agents seized over 11,000 documents and photographs without classified markings, along with more than 100 documents marked classified. Some of these documents were labeled “top secret.” The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) also retrieved 15 boxes of government documents from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in January 2022.

The raid followed a warrant issued by U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, which enabled agents to seize any documents with classification markings, as well as containers in which the documents were located and any containers stored or found together with the documents.

In 2023, Smith indicted Trump with felony charges over his alleged unlawful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and concealing a document in a federal investigation.

Trump had denied any wrongdoing in the cases and called the investigation politically motivated. In a June 2023 interview with Fox News, Trump defended his handling of the documents and said he believes that he had rights to the retained documents.

“Everything was declassified because I have the right to declassify,“ he told the news host. “This is purely a Presidential Records Act [thing]. This is not a criminal thing.”

Smith dropped both cases after Trump won a second presidential term in the 2024 election, citing the DOJ’s policy against prosecuting a sitting president. The special counsel resigned from the DOJ ahead of Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.

Prior to his resignation, Smith completed a final report on his investigations into Trump’s criminal cases. Former U.S….

One In Three Spaniards Say Their Area Suffers From Over-Tourism

A YouGov survey highlighted how the sting of over-tourism is being felt by as many as one in three people in Spain. 

As Statista’s Anna Fleck reports, this figure grows even higher when looking at certain regions, with 48 percent of respondents living in Catalonia saying that there are too many international tourists in the local area. 

 

You will find more infographics at Statista

The polling company found that where 45 percent of respondents in Spain had an unfavorable view of the holiday rental properties industry, only 21 percent held the same view of the hotel industry.

Looking at Spain’s neighbor, 18 percent of respondents in France said they thought there were too many international tourists there. 

However, a higher share of French respondents said that there were about the right number of international tourists (44 percent) or even that there were not enough (24 percent).

In Britain, Denmark and Sweden, very few held the view that overtourism was a local issue.

As one response to the housing crisis in Spain, the government proposed last month a 100 percent tax on the value of properties bought by non-residents from outside of the EU, including the UK.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 03/01/2025 – 07:35…

Escobar: Baltic/Black Sea Power-Games & Red-Lines Intersect In A “Strange War”

Authored by Pepe Escobar,

No one ever lost money betting on the batshit crazy “policies” of the ferociously yapping Baltic chihuahuas. Their latest power play of sorts is a drive to turn the Baltic Sea into a NATO lake.

The notion that a bunch of Russophobic sub-entities have what it takes to expel the Russian superpower from the Baltic Sea and pose a threat to St. Petersburg does not even qualify as cartoonish. Yet that is indeed part and parcel of NATO’s re-configured obsessions, as their warmongering “vanguard” has been relocated to a London-Warsaw-Baltic chihuahuas-Ukraine axis.

What kind of black hole rump “Ukraine” will turn out to be after the end of the war – which may not even happen in 2025 – remains to be seen. What’s certain is that in the case of a Ukraine exit – whatever the modalities – enter Romania.

The whole electoral farce in Romania – complete with the demonization of election front-runner Calin Georgescu – revolves around the upgrading of the Mihail Kogalniceanu base, which will become the largest NATO military base in Europe.

So, once again, this is all about the Black Sea. NATO wreaking havoc in the Black Sea carries way more savory prospects than NATO via chihuahuas monopolizing the Baltic Sea.

Ilya Fabrichnikov, a member of Russia’s Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, has published a remarkable essay essentially focusing on the Black Sea (this is a short version on the Kommersant daily).

Fabrichnikov convincingly argues that from an European – UE/NATO – angle, what really mattered in Ukraine was “to move its borders, along with its military, political and economic infrastructure, close to Russia’s, to put under full control the strategic Black Sea trade corridor – which easily stretches further north along the Odessa-Gdansk route – in order to more conveniently and quickly explore the economic spaces of Asia and North Africa, and to begin dictating its terms to Russian supplies of oil, gas and other resources needed by the European economy.”

As this focused power play instrumentalizing Ukraine is unravelling in real time, a replacement is needed – even as warmongering Eurocrats keep peddling their Orwellian “peace is war” dementia non-stop, complete with a non-stop tsunami of sanctions and renewed promises of avalanches of weapons to Kiev.

This is a classic Brussels vassals affair – even as the toxic Medusa von der Lugen as head of the EC and Rutti-Frutti as the new head of NATO were essentially appointed by Washington and London. Collectively, Europe has pumped way more military-political funds into black hole Ukraine than the Americans.

The reason is simple. For Europe there’s no Plan B apart from that mirific “strategic defeat” of Russia.

The EU/NATO Black Sea power play would make it even more imperative for Russia to connect with Transnistria. The only one who can answer whether this is part of the current planning is of course President Putin.

Neo-nazis go pipeline bombing

Russian intel is very much aware that the Europeans have to some extent already…

How Long Do Muslims Fast For Ramadan Around The World?

This year’s Ramadan is expected to start on the night of Friday, February 28, with the first day of fasting on Saturday, March 1. 

As Statista’s Anna Fleck reports, the holy month is based on the Islamic lunar calendar which is 11 days shorter than the Gregorian solar year, and so its start shifts earlier each year. While the number of days of Ramadan are equal for all Muslims observing it around the world, the length of the daily fast is not.

 

You will find more infographics at Statista

During Ramadan, observers vow to abstain from eating, drinking, smoking and sexual activities through daylight hours. 

This means that those living further north have to fast for much longer than their counterparts living closer to the equator or even to those in the Southern hemisphere, which is currently tilted away from the sun. 

The chart above, based on data from website islamicfinder.com, shows that Muslims fasting for Ramadan in Reykjavík, Island, will have to fast for up to 16 hours and 29 minutes, which is the time between sunrise and sunset on March 29, the last and longest day of fasting this year. 

Meanwhile Muslims living in Melbourne, Australia, will only need to fast for a maximum of 13 hours and 16 minutes.

With the dates of Ramadan moving, there can be a significant difference in the length of fasting depending on the year.

For example, in 2013, Ramadan took place during the peak of summer for the Northern Hemisphere, with countries such as Norway experiencing sundown for only around three hours at night. 

This meant practicing communities faced fasts lasting upwards of 20 hours. 

To counterbalance this, Muslims may also observe Ramadan using the timetable of Mecca (13 hours and 35 minutes in 2025) or their nearest Muslim city.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/28/2025 – 18:00…